Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher podcast. Today I have the absolute privilege of listening to some more voicemails, and I get to answer them, and we're going to hit it right now. I have a daughter-in-law. She's a stepdaughter-in-law, who is very, I think, rude, but she's a lawyer, and she says, I'd like to be very direct. And then she hits you with a zinger and tells you how awful you are, and blah, blah, blah, blah tells you off. It's a pattern she's had.

She's done some really bad ones.

Once she did, very direct. And then she hits you with a zinger and tells you how awful you are and blah, blah,

blah, blah tells you off. It's a pattern she's had. She's done some really bad ones once she did a

three-day letter to tell me off. What's behind all this with her? And how do I counter that?

So there's this thing that some people have that they, this is what it sounds like. This is just my personality. This is just how I am. I'm

just very direct. And they use that as some type of excuse to say not nice things, the things

that are rude, things that aren't kind. And yet they feel like they have some shroud of immunity because they go,

that's just my personality. You don't need to take that. This is what I want you to do instead.

Questions are far more powerful than statements, especially when somebody's being rude.

When somebody says, hey, this is just my

personality. You get to ask the question, is that a personality or is this a choice? Is this a

personality or is this a choice? You say how instead of me going and turning into a statement

of accusation and saying, no, it's not your personality. This is how

you're just choosing to be. This is how you are. Like, that's only going to make it worse. But if you

ask the question, then they get to actually think about it. And now there's a spotlight on how

they're treating you. And now they have to go through the mental exercise of answering that

question or choosing to accept their bad behavior. Right. So we they have to go through the mental exercise of answering that question or choosing

to accept their bad behavior. So we're going to, you do these, where you give them choices.

And almost always people tend to do the more reasonable choice of walking it back rather than doubling

it down. Another thing, when somebody is, when you ask the question of,

you know, what's behind all that? What's behind all that? I'll tell you what's behind all that.

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